THESE are the researches of Herodotus of Halicarnassus, which he publishes, in t

he hope of
thereby preserving from decay the remembrance of what men have done, and of prev
enting the great and
wonderful actions of the Greeks and the Barbarians from losing their due meed of
glory; and withal to
put on record what were their grounds of feuds.
[1.1] According to the Persians best informed in history, the Phoenicians began
to quarrel. This people,
who had formerly dwelt on the shores of the Erythraean Sea, having migrated to t
he Mediterranean and
settled in the parts which they now inhabit, began at once, they say, to adventu
re on long voyages,
freighting their vessels with the wares of Egypt and Assyria. They landed at man
y places on the coast,
and among the rest at Argos, which was then preeminent above all the states incl
uded now under the
common name of Hellas. Here they exposed their merchandise, and traded with the
natives for five or six
days; at the end of which time, when almost everything was sold, there came down
to the beach a
number of women, and among them the daughter of the king, who was, they say, agr
eeing in this with
the Greeks, Io, the child of Inachus. The women were standing by the stern of th
e ship intent upon their
purchases, when the Phoenicians, with a general shout, rushed upon them. The gre
ater part made their
escape, but some were seized and carried off. Io herself was among the captives.
The Phoenicians put the
women on board their vessel, and set sail for Egypt. Thus did Io pass into Egypt
, according to the Persian
story, which differs widely from the Phoenician: and thus commenced, according t
o their authors, the
series of outrages.
[1.2] At a later period, certain Greeks, with whose name they are unacquainted,
but who would probably
be Cretans, made a landing at Tyre, on the Phoenician coast, and bore off the ki
ng's daughter, Europe. In
this they only retaliated; but afterwards the Greeks, they say, were guilty of a
second violence. They
manned a ship of war, and sailed to Aea, a city of Colchis, on the river Phasis;
from whence, after
despatching the rest of the business on which they had come, they carried off Me
dea, the daughter of the
king of the land. The monarch sent a herald into Greece to demand reparation of
the wrong, and the
restitution of his child; but the Greeks made answer that, having received no re
paration of the wrong
done them in the seizure of Io the Argive, they should give none in this instanc
e.
[1.3] In the next generation afterwards, according to the same authorities, Alex
ander the son of Priam,
bearing these events in mind, resolved to procure himself a wife out of Greece b
y violence, fully
persuaded, that as the Greeks had not given satisfaction for their outrages, so
neither would he be forced
to make any for his. Accordingly he made prize of Helen; upon which the Greeks d
ecided that, before
resorting to other measures, they would send envoys to reclaim the princess and
require reparation of the

wrong. Their demands were met by a reference to the violence which had been offe
red to Medea, and
they were asked with what face they could now require satisfaction, when they ha
d formerly rejected all
demands for either reparation or restitution addressed to them.
[1.4] Hitherto the injuries on either side had been mere acts of common violence
; but in what followed
the Persians consider that the Greeks were greatly to blame, since before any at
tack had been made on
Europe, they led an army into Asia. Now as for the carrying off of women, it is
the deed, they say, of a
rogue: but to make a stir about such as are carried off, argues a man a fool. Me
n of sense care nothing for
such women, since it is plain that without their own consent they would never be
forced away. The
Asiatics, when the Greeks ran off with their women, never troubled themselves ab
out the matter; but the
Greeks, for the sake of a single Lacedaemonian girl, collected a vast armament,
invaded Asia, and
destroyed the kingdom of Priam. Henceforth they ever looked upon the Greeks as t
heir open enemies.
For Asia, with all the various tribes of barbarians that inhabit it, is regarded
by the Persians as their own;
but Europe and the Greek race they look on as distinct and separate.
[1.5] Such is the account which the Persians give of these matters. They trace t
o the attack upon Troy
their ancient enmity towards the Greeks. The Phoenicians, however, as regards Io
, vary from the Persian
statements. They deny that they used any violence to remove her into Egypt; she
herself, they say,
having formed an intimacy with the captain, while his vessel lay at Argos, and p
erceiving herself to be
with child, of her own free will accompanied the Phoenicians on their leaving th
e shore, to escape the
shame of detection and the reproaches of her parents. Whether this latter accoun
t be true, or whether the
matter happened otherwise, I shall not discuss further. I shall proceed at once
to point out the person who
first within my own knowledge inflicted injury on the Greeks, after which I shal
l go forward with my
history, describing equally the greater and the lesser cities. For the cities wh
ich were formerly great have
most of them become insignificant; and such as are at present powerful, were wea
k in the olden time. I
shall therefore discourse equally of both, convinced that human happiness never
continues long in one
stay.
[1.6] Croesus, son of Alyattes, by birth a Lydian, was lord of all the nations t
o the west of the river
Halys. This stream, which separates Syria from Paphlagonia, runs with a course f
rom south to north, and
finally falls into the Euxine. So far as our knowledge goes, he was the first of
the barbarians who had
dealings with the Greeks, forcing some of them to become his tributaries, and en
tering into alliance with
others. He conquered the Aeolians, Ionians, and Dorians of Asia, and made a trea
ty with the
Lacedaemonians. Up to that time all Greeks had been free. For the Cimmerian atta
ck upon Ionia, which
was earlier than Croesus, was not a conquest of the cities, but only an inroad f

or plundering.
[1.7] The sovereignty of Lydia, which had belonged to the Heraclides, passed int
o the family of Croesus,
who were called the Mermnadae, in the manner which I will now relate. There was
a certain king of
Sardis, Candaules by name, whom the Greeks called Myrsilus. He was a descendant
of Alcaeus, son of
Hercules. The first king of this dynasty was Agron, son of Ninus, grandson of Be
lus, and great-grandson
of Alcaeus; Candaules, son of Myrsus, was the last. The kings who reigned before
Agron sprang from
Lydus, son of Atys, from whom the people of the land, called previously Meonians
, received the name of
Lydians. The Heraclides, descended from Hercules and the slave-girl of Jardanus,
having been entrusted
by these princes with the management of affairs, obtained the kingdom by an orac
le. Their rule endured
for two and twenty generations of men, a space of five hundred and five years; d
uring the whole of
which period, from Agron to Candaules, the crown descended in the direct line fr
om father to son.